World Briefs

Published
5:30 am CDT, Tuesday, June 8, 2004

Inspectors say Iraqi sites cleaned out

UNITED NATIONS -- A number of sites in Iraq known to have contained equipment and material that could have been used to produce banned weapons and long-range missiles have been either cleaned out or destroyed, U.N. weapons inspectors said Monday. U.N. inspectors were pulled from Iraq just before the war began in March 2003 and the United States has refused to allow them to return, instead deploying its own teams to search for weapons of mass destruction. "It is possible that some of the materials may have been removed from Iraq by looters of sites and sold as scrap," the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission said.

Israeli planes strike target in Lebanon

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Israeli warplanes attacked a Palestinian militant base Monday south of Beirut, Lebanese security officials said. In Jerusalem, the Israeli military confirmed an airstrike near the Lebanese capital, saying it was in retaliation for a missile fired at an Israeli naval vessel earlier in the day.

Sharon survives two no-confidence votes

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon survived no-confidence votes in Parliament Monday, a sign that his coalition is in no immediate danger of collapse, despite Cabinet approval of a divisive Gaza withdrawal plan a day earlier. The two no-confidence motions, both on economic issues, were rejected 41-31, with 15 abstentions, and 41-26, with 22 abstentions.

Report: Mafia runs much of Turkey

ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkish mafia-controlled activities are equal in value to almost a quarter of the national economy, and gangsters have a foothold in more than 100 sectors of the economy, the Ankara Chamber of Commerce said in a report Monday. In addition to traditional gangster activities such as drug-trafficking, prostitution and loan sharking, the Turkish mafia is also involved in kidnapping young children from poor neighborhoods to sell to richer, childless families and in selling body parts from the poor, the report said.

Pamphlet bombs hit 3 cities in Ecuador

QUITO, Ecuador -- Small pamphlet bombs exploded in three cities and Ecuador's powerful Indian movement blocked the Pan American Highway on Monday as part of planned demonstrations to demand the resignation of President Lucio Gutierrez. Three bombs exploded in Quito, one in Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city, and three in Cuenca in southern Ecuador. The pamphlets in the bombs carried the name of the so-called Group of People's Combatants and criticized an Organization of American States meeting in Quito and the government's economic policies.

Union behind power outages in France

PARIS -- French trade union activists claimed responsibility for surprise power outages Monday that delayed hundreds of thousands of rail passengers in Paris. The Communist-backed CGT union warned of more protests over plans for the partial privatization of utilities.

Groom said `yes,' but in wrong language

CLUJ, Romania -- The groom said "yes," but a city hall official said "no," refusing to marry a couple because the groom didn't voice his consent first in the Romanian language. Vasile Gherman, a civil servant who performs civil marriages, refused to marry Andrei Dombi, 44, an ethnic Hungarian with dual Romanian and French citizenship to Anca Diana Toma, 33, after Dombi said "yes" in Hungarian, Romanian and French. Gherman may now face disciplinary action. "He didn't act correctly," said Mircea Jorj, a legal adviser with Cluj City Hall.